Aaron D. Spurgeon

Lighting Study

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

I revisited one of my old paintings and redesigned it more 3 dimensionally. When I originally worked on this piece it had characters with inspiration from the great Henri Rousseau. This 3d stuff pushes me out of my comfort zone as I have tendencies to paint and design in a flat fashion. Maybe later I might add some characters and a story to this.

Fun with the pencil

2012-01-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

Fair Oaks and Colorado southeast corner Circa 1910

Rural Mouse sketch

Some of my favorite pieces in the animation world are from artist that can produce jaw dropping pieces with just the good old pencil. Just straight up incredible positive and negative spacing. Here are the sites of some of my favorites:

Colin Stimpson

Paul Felix (of course)

Alex Nino (this is hans bacher's site)
Luke Desmarchelier

My new years resolution is to do lots and lots of drawing, both studies and thumbs. I've found that drawing in Photoshop only makes me miss the good old graphite. I've been practicing a lot of figure drawing, especially head and hands but I'm not going to post that just yet. I don't want to bore anyone who might be following my blog :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Latest work

2011-10-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long pause in posts. I've been super duper busy! Which is very welcomed. These pieces were done for a canceled television animation project.

Art Deco Los Angeles in Color

2011-07-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

My homage to the great city of Los Angeles during the Film Noir era. Before the city's skyline was forever changed by the 1960's Downtown L.A. building boom. Although there are many different types of architecture in Los Angeles, in my opinion its Art Deco architecture is the most impressive. Not every jewel of Deco architecture here is represented. I left out some just because the level of detail on some of the buildings would've doubled the size of this illustration.

Click here to order a print of Art Deco Los Angeles.

L.A. Studies

2011-07-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Some of my latest studies of old Los Angeles in Gouache and pencil.

Art Deco Los Angeles Value Study

2011-07-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

Here is the Value study for Art Deco Los Angeles. I left a couple of Art Deco giants out such as the Bullocks Wilshire building because the composition got a little complicated. I might have to ad the Wiltern theater, though I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to put it. Los Angeles is such a large city, it'll take me a little while to quench my thirst to illustrate it. I'll be posting a picture of the color file as it becomes available.

KINOFEST!

2011-07-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

This week I am happy to announce that I've been published on Kinofest, International Digital Film Festival's artist exhibition website. Such an honor! Click here to take a look.

United States Court of Appeals, Pasadena Ca

2011-06-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

In 1931 The New Vista del Arroyo Hotel opened up sporting a grand six-story addition and a beautiful bell tower. In 1943 the building was purchased by the U.S. War Department and it became the McCormack Army Hospital until it was deactivated in 1949. Circa 1981 the Vista del Arroyo was placed in the National Register of Historic Places, and became the southern seat of the United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit. In 1995 it was renamed in honor of Judge Richard H. Chambers whose concept it was to bring a Federal courthouse to Pasadena. - wikipedia

This piece was done using a photoshop technique where I scan in a traditionally painted gouache texture and graphically painted under the texture layer in photoshop.

Tea for Two # 3

2011-06-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

Been painting a lot with gouache lately. Here is the third painting in my Tea for Two series. Its quite refreshing to do something different from Photoshop for a change.

Pretty Truck in Front of Coffee Shop

2011-05-23T17:21:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was commissioned to do an illustration of a truck for the father of a good friend of mine. This is the public version with an orange truck instead of his original one of a kind blue 1954 Ford F100. This will be vailable as a limited edition print at the Rose Bowl Arts and Crafts Show in June.

Tea for Two Print

2011-05-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do on a lazy day is Tea for Two. Printed on archival Canson aquarelle paper.

Beautiful Woman under Trellis

2011-05-09T14:00:00.001-07:00

This illustration was inspired by my wife Lydia. She's Half Puerto Rican and Half Thai.

Country Duet

2011-04-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

Inspired by the great children's book illustrator Cliff Roberts This country singing Duet greeting card is now available for purchase. Click here to visit my online store

Now Available at my Etsy Store

2011-04-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

The Quintet Stringed Instrument category is now available. Stay tuned for information on custom orders for Greeting cards and invitations of all kinds.

Portrait of Pasadena

2010-12-07T23:13:00.000-08:00

Illustrated Views of the City of Pasadena, California.

Limited Palette

2010-10-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

The first piece using Blue and Orange at Balboa Park San Diego, Ca. Second piece using Red and Green at a shack in Oxnard, Ca. Add white and you get a full range of value. I like this exercise because it keeps me from screwing my colors up.

Speed Painting

2010-08-27T18:09:00.001-07:00

Literally had minutes to capture the color here. Location is the Pasadena Court of Appeals, Guauche medium.

The Strangle. This time in color [00]

2010-08-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

Finally done with the scene.

I'm revisiting this subject to fit more with the style I'm using for my senior project. These colors won't actually make it in the final background painting but I like to explore my options before committing to a color scheme. You can have so much fun with color without the background ! I used bright colors to pull myself out of my comfort zone. The bottom drawing is the old drawing done in Ink. For the BG painting I decided to give it a little more seriousness by keeping Nathaniel's feet on the ground.

Insane Asylum

2010-07-19T11:57:00.001-07:00

Nathaniel being carted off in a Paddy Wagon by 2 big lugs. This guy just can't get a break. Speaking of breaks I need one. Academia just is overwhelming these days as I get closer to graduating. If art school was a sport, lets just say the studio classes are loosing :/

Nathaniel's Dance

2010-06-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Nathaniel at one of his happiest moments. But why is everybody but his sister laughing at him? He's dancing with the towns most famous wooden puppet Olympia. She's so radiant that Nathaniel doesn't notice her paleness. He's in love but doesn't notice that she doesn't have a pulse :o

A bit more busy in the drawing phase. I cleaned it up quite a bit, lost a little bit of the Hirschfeld inspiration and gained a little bit of Cliff Roberts, also fixed some compositional issues.

Times Square Circa 1950

2010-04-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

Inspired by the great children's book illustrator Miroslav Sasek.

The Sandman

2010-04-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

The Elusive Thief that steals eyeballs. Yumm.

Nathaniel's Fall

2010-02-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

Nathaniel as he looses it and attacks Dr. Spelanzani, in E.T.A Hoffmans Sandman. Ink on bristol.

Let's Duet

2010-02-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

From a class I'm taking with the legendary Paul Rogers. Finish will be up in a couple of days or so.

Cafe Opera

2010-02-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

Gouache and paper cutout, color studies to final.

On site study.

2010-02-03T22:32:00.001-08:00

Guauche at the Arboretum 8x10. Nice to put down the Wacom every once in a while.

E.T.A. Hoffman's Sandman Environment: University

2010-01-07T15:01:00.001-08:00

A study for the front the School where Dr. Spelanzani teaches, as seen through the eyes of Nathaniel.

Treacherous Journey

2009-11-12T21:51:00.001-08:00

Sometimes verticals can be fun :]

Automaton makin station.

2009-11-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Cleaned up the inking a little and added color for Mood :0

More Experimentation for my Sandman project. These are quite moodier than most of my pieces. This is inside the laboratory of Professor Spalanzani, who would have succumbed to the hands of Nathaniel had it not been for the noise he made.

What Color = Insanity?

2009-10-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

Continuing with Hoffman's Sandman theme, except in a less stylized 3 dimensional composition. In this scene Nathaniel is seeing for the first time that the love of his life is an automaton and even worse she's being dismantled by the scientist who made her. Here I included a B/W layout along with one of my color keys. More to come later as I flesh out this painting.

You got to read this story if you haven't already, they don't get much crazier than this!

The Sandman

Been a looong time..

2009-09-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

Nathaniel's mother planted the seed of his insanity with the story of the Sandman. He became obsessed with the man who would throw sand in the eyes of naughty children who wouldn't go to sleep and night. Their eyes would then fall out and he'd feed them to his children. This Illustration is based off of E.T.A. Hoffman's Sandman

Breaks Over

2009-01-04T09:20:00.001-08:00

Well My favorite time of the year is over, and now its back to work. But as you can see here, my buddy Paul Bunyan hasn't even opened his presents yet. Santa sent a whole lot of gifts his way because Paul produced a lot O' Christmas trees this year! Can't wait to paint this one!

More story telling

2008-12-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

Just practicing some more storytelling. Something I feel Art Center is not quite emphasized enough in class, but a much needed skill. Needless to say this piece was definitely influenced by Pixar's Cars. Speed is the name of the game lately as I feel it is one of the necessary components to keeping the creative juices flowing.

Reminiscing

2008-10-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

This is a portrait of me and some friends when I got my first Radio controlled car. It made me the coolest kid on the block, because not only was it my car, I actually had to build this thing! Can you see the utter joy in my eyes, there's even a little bit of dribble.

An old Piece finally done

2008-10-15T00:29:00.000-07:00

A story well worth illustrating, the great escape of Harriet Tubman way back in the year 1849. The original thumbs and background didn't really take that long, it was positioning Harriet against the tree that did. In order to turn this project in on time I put a very stiff looking Harriet in the original, some of my classmates at Art Center would probably remember that. The original post is way back early in my blog if anyone wants to compare. Anyway it finally as done as its going to get, please let me know what you think.

Some Stylized Botanicals

2008-10-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

For these sketches I imagined myself in a rain forest.

Quick and Dirty Asian Boathouse Color Study

2008-09-29T22:21:00.001-07:00

Continuing my Asian garden theme, but because I'm in school right now I just had time to do a warm and cool color study in Photoshop. I miss guauche and you could say I don't enjoy painting on the computer half as much but its kinda fun to do quick stuff like this. The third drawing is a variation of the Boathouse, I took out the railing because I thought it got too busy.

Comic Stuff

2008-09-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is actually a class assignment that basically is a story that we can't use words. I was inspired while looking at the work of Dan DeCarlo comic extraordinaire. I used FW inks on BFK Reeves paper to give it that retro look.

Vacation in Sonoma County

2008-09-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

There's been a lack of updates on my site because my wife and I are on vacation and we're having lots of fun. Here's a couple of photos I took. The first was taken with the camera's timer, of course. The second is a series of photos I constructed into a panorama. When I get back home I'm going to start putting together another blog for my reference photography. More on that later, as I'll be posting some plein aire paintings that I've done while on vacation along with more large photos.

Asian Garden Sketch

2008-08-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a paint-sketch of an asian garden with some shape and design elements based on Eyvind Earle's style of painting.

Rock Studies

2008-08-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

These are rock studies for the next piece I'm working on. I've been looking at the work of Eyvinde Earle, and the visual development for Open Season, witch was influenced heavily by his work. I'll be drawing a lot of these before I start drawing the finished piece witch is a Chinese garden with an outhouse in it.

So Done with this project

2008-08-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

I am now more than ready to move on to the next project. In this final version I actually did paint the characters on acetate but I tightened them up in Photoshop.

Troll Haven Variation

2008-08-08T00:45:00.001-07:00

After having a tough crit with the great Mike Humphries, I made a few changes to my Troll Haven composition. The simplicity of the original thumbs was suggested, I pushed the trolls living space back and made more space for the characters. This time I probably will paint the characters on acetate with cartoon color.

Arboretum Paint sketch

2008-08-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

This painting was done after a sketch out in the field at the Arboretum a while back. I'm not impressed with the way nature looks in Southern California in the summer because the sun is so bright it washes everything out, so I had to improvise by using a warm cool limited palette inspired by a painting I studied in The Art of Mulan.

Spanish Architecture

2008-08-03T22:05:00.001-07:00

This is a study of the Architecture in Balboa Park in San Diego. If you live in California and your an artist or just like to paint you owe it to yourself to go.

Troll Haven Final

2008-08-01T21:13:00.001-07:00

Here's the final with characters, I decided to paint the characters right in the scene witch for me is bold because I'm always worried I might mess up the original background. The painting was too dark to use my black transfer paper so I used a bright pink colored pencil to redraw the characters in the scene so I wouldn't get confused when I started painting the characters in. I lit the troll in Photoshop along with some highlights on the characters to enhance the look.

Troll Haven Background

2008-07-31T16:07:00.001-07:00

So my background for Troll Haven is done, as a first for me I'm posting a start to finish in the hopes that it might be insightful for someone else. The characters that were previously posted and in the thumbs I haven't decided to paint them on acetate or to place them in the background in Photoshop. This piece was done in gauache, 9 x 16.

Troll Haven Thumbs

2008-07-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

Here are thumbnails for the final style project for Mike Humphries. These were done in guauche. After a couple of color keys I'll start on the final.

String City Finish

2008-07-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the final for "String City", with effort more focused on the style of Al Hirschfeld rather than rendering.

String City

2008-07-02T00:39:00.001-07:00

This is a very large graphite pencil drawing (about 16 x 34"w) I did for Mike Humphries Style class. In this composition I drew a city based on stringed instruments and in the style of the great celebrity illustrator Al Hirschfield. Unfortunately I got carried away while havin fun with the pencil and failed at Hirschfield's style, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with a more line based drawing witch I will post in the next few days.

Iron Giant

2008-06-08T11:16:00.001-07:00

This is a project that I did for an assignment by Mike Humphries, the great artist and designer for many animated film. The idea was to incorporate the style of William Joyce (Robots, child book illustrator). The medium used was guouche and brightened up in photoshop. The story takes place hundreds of years after the Iron Giant makes a crash landing on earth. His head gets mistaken for the hull of a ship and gets transfered to an abandoned shipyard where its used as a living quarters for an old ex ship captain. Over the years his body parts collect enough energy from earths environment to become mobile. The lights coming out of his eyes work as a beacon for the rest of his body. Needless to say the ship captain will soon be loosing his home.

Little Pictures. Ohh so cute!

2008-05-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I like to just do little pictures. The last thumb is for my interpretation of the Iron Giant's head in a ship graveyard, based on the style of the great children's book illustrator William Joyce. That Guy is cool. I hope one day to be good like him.

Back to the Basics

2008-05-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

Homage to Art Center.

Some Old stuff I did for VisDev

2008-04-25T00:43:00.001-07:00

Here's some old stuff, some of you may be familiar with if you were in VisDev with me. The story is the Time Machine, guess you could say I'm going back in time. It was 3rd term, I remember getting lots of drawings and sketches done but I didn't get as much finished work as I wanted to. Over the Summer I'm revisiting this series of layouts and character design's (yes there are more characters I attempted to design), and finish what I started. More posts on this to come.

Its Break-time !!!!

2008-04-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

Finally free to paint stuff I never would have time to paint while in school!!! At the moment watercolor is my friend. Hey does anybody know of any good watercolor books/tutorials?

Quasi-all-grownsup

2008-04-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

Before 2d I was planning on doing a layout in 3d. Mr. Kato recommended a more 2 dimensional design because he knew I would have more fun. Maybe this Summer I might expand on a more realistic layout for this character

Finished Character Design for Quasimodo

2008-04-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Here's my finished designs for the Quasi in my story. This character was rendered in photoshop after the pencil sketch.

Run Quazi

2008-04-02T11:49:00.001-07:00

For this image I used cell vinyl to get that real flat look. Cell vinyl kinda acts like gouache but is much more forgiving. There are still some compositional elements I'm gonna change so this is a work in progress.

Hunchback Progress

2008-04-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Some new character drawings for my Hunchback project. Let me know what you think!!

Hunckback of Notre Dame

2008-03-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

This is a couple of studies for my latest project, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in development for a class at school taught by Bob Kato. 2 dimensional design is refreshing but also very challenging. These were in done in Acrylic.

Tubman Illustration update

2008-03-14T00:02:00.001-07:00

Finally done!!

Some Caricature for Y'all

2008-02-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

This is my most serious self portrait.

Harriet Tubman

2008-02-23T21:08:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been working on an Illustration based on Harriet Tubman. Still a work in progress, not crazy about the composition and need more/better textures.

Dorothy meets the Scarecrow

2008-01-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

Dddddid, you just say something Mr. Scarecrow! More Wizard of Oz madness.

Gaucho cowboy sketch

2008-01-13T02:21:00.000-08:00

Done in acrylic and colored in Photoshop. This painting is about 6 x 8. I like using acrylic, I find it quite relaxing and satisfying but I really desire to learn gouache.

Yellow Brick Run (Work in Progress)

2008-01-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

Here's one of many thats not finished, but suggestions are still welcomed here at Spurgworks. More Wizard of Oz comin soon!

Emerald City. Spurj style

2008-01-11T21:09:00.001-08:00

I'll start my blog with something thats actually finished.

This was done for a Creative Perspective. Suggestions and

Comments greatly appreciated on any of my pieces.